From Deseret News archives:
Utahns hope to reform NCLB
Matheson bill would give more leeway to states
Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, introduced a bill last month that outlines changes to testing and gives flexibility to teacher requirements. Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, has a panel of education experts working on recommendations on how to make the education law better, and Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, who was a high school teacher for almost 30 years, would rather allow Utah and other states to opt out of the federal rules and use federal money for education as it sees fit.
On Monday, the House Education and Labor Committee heard from 43 witnesses as part of reauthorization work on the No Child Left Behind Act, the Bush administration's controversial federal education bill.
The law, known as NCLB, seeks to have all children, regardless of race, native language, disability or income, reading and doing math on grade level by 2014. It requires annual reports on progress toward the goal of each student and school. If one student group doesn't meet state test score goals, then the whole school fails to make adequate yearly progress.
The state receives about $109 million a year under No Child Left Behind, mostly for low-income and disadvantaged children.
The Utah Legislature has talked about opting out of the program they largely view as trampling on states' rights to govern public education. Twice state lawmakers have examined bills to assert their position, both to hasty response from the U.S. Department of Education seeking their retreat.
But lawmakers nevertheless passed a law requiring state resources be put toward state not federal education goals.
Now Congress is trying to figure out how to fix the federal law.
"We still feel like the general nature of the bill must be changed to restore the control of public schools to states and to their state leaderships," State Superintendent of Public Instruction Patti Harrington said.
Recent comments
Bishop has a bill that's not going anywhere; it's going to die...
Hawk | Sept. 11, 2007 at 5:52 p.m.
Thank you Chris Cannon for taking up this issue. Matheson has simply...
Iron | Sept. 11, 2007 at 2:41 p.m.
It is all the Democates fault because NCLB was a system devised by...
Swrl | Sept. 11, 2007 at 10:49 a.m.
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